117 



GORDON, HOBERT. 



GORGEI, ARTHUR. 



of his eminent contemporary countrymen, and it would therefore be 

 impossible to give hero a list of their name*. In truth we do not think 

 that hi* more suooewful portrait* are thote of the more famous of his 

 aitten : hU likeness of Sir Walter Scott, for initanoe, is far from one 

 of the best of the author of Waverley, and far from one of Gordon's 

 best His greatness lies in portraying the hard, canny, calculating, 

 worldly-wise side of the Scottish character. An enumeration of one 

 year's contribution to the Royal Academy Exhibition (that of 1851) 

 will perhaps sufficiently convey an idea of the range of his commis- 

 sions : the Duke of Argyll; Sir \V. Gibson Craig, M.I', fur Edinburgh ; 

 Sir John Pskington, M.I'. ; Dr. Couolly ; and Professor Wilson. 



Gordon was one of the earliest of the members, if not one of the 

 founders, of the Royal Scottish Academy, and he has always been one 

 of its warmest friends. On the death of Sir William Allen in 1850, 

 Gordon was elected its president Her Majesty at the same time 

 appointed him to the office of Painter-Limner to the Queen in Scotland, 

 and conferred upon him the honour of knighthood ; and the Royal 

 Academy, London, elected him an academician : he had been chosen 

 an associate in 1841. 



GORDON, ROBERT, was born in Aberdeenshire about the year 

 15SO. He studied first at Aberdeen, and afterwards at Paris. On his 

 father's death in 1600 he returned to Scotland, and succeeded to his 

 ancestral estate of Straloch. At this time the vast collection of maps, 

 and corresponding letter-press geographical and historical descriptions, 

 projected by Blaeu of Amsterdam, was in progress. The Dutch 

 editors had been put in possession of some geographical drafts of the 

 Tarious provinces of Scotland, drawn by Timothy Pont, an eminent 

 geographer. These drafts, which are now preserved in the Advo- 

 cates' Library, are singularly minute and curious, and very valuable 

 as throwing light on the state of the country and the condition 

 of property in Scotland at the time when they were executed. 

 Pont had died in the execution of his task, leaving these drafts, 

 minute and apparently accurate, but fragmentary and totally desti- 

 tute of arrangement. The editors of the Atlas applied to King 

 Charles, and solicited bis patronage of the portion of the work appli 

 cable to Scotland, and his appointment of a person qualified to com 

 plete the work. It was placed by royal authority in Gordon's hands, 

 in 1641. The part of Blaeu's Atlas, commonly called ' Theatrum 

 Scotia;, 1 was finished by Gordon in 1648, and forms one of the eleven 

 volumes of that work. It contains forty-nine minute and highly 

 finished maps of the various provinces of Scotland, accompanied by a 

 description in Latin, full of the results of extensive and accurate 

 research. The result of the knowledge and labour bestowed on this 

 work was to give a greater prominence to Scotland in this general 

 geographical work than the position of the country entitled it to. 

 Gordon's labours were considered as of so much national importance, 

 that by a special act of parliament he was exempt from the quartering 

 of soldiers and other public burdens, and, as he abstained from con- 

 necting himself with either side, he was respected in the midst of his 

 labours by both the parties by which the country was then distracted. 

 Gordon died in 1661. The geographical papers which he had originally 

 prepared were still more extensive than the work published by blaeu. 

 There is a large mass of them among the manuscripts in the Advo- 

 cates' Library, in the printed catalogues of which their titles will be 

 found, and some portions of them have been lately printed by the 

 book-clubs. Gordon had collected materials for a history of his own 

 adventurous time. His son, James Gordon, clergyman of Kothiemay 

 who seems to have assisted him in his geographical labours, put these 

 materials in a narrative form, and the ' History of Scots Affairs,' thus 

 prepared, was printed in 1841, in three volumes, 4 to, for the Spalding 

 Club. 



GORDON, THOMAS, was born at Kirkcudbright, in Galloway 

 about 1684, received his education at one of the Scotch universities, 

 and came early to London, where he gained a livelihood by teaching 

 languages, and by political authorship. It is said that he was em 

 ployed by the Earl of Oxford. He is best known by his translation 

 of Tacitus, 2 vols. foL, 1728-31, a scholar-like work, which has been 

 referred to by Brotier as an authority in explaining doubtful passages 

 It is stiff and often ungraceful, from the author's desire to follow the 

 order of words in the original as far as ' possible ; but is on the whole 

 the best translation of Tacitus in our language. Gordon also trans 

 lated Sallust, with Cicero's four Orations against Catiline, 4to, 1744 

 Both works are accompanied by Political Essays. 



Mr. Gordon in early life seems to have held democratic principles 

 which recommended him to the friendship of Mr. Trenchurd, a gentle 

 man of family and fortune, well known in the political world, whose 

 widow ultimately became Gordon's wife. Conjointly they publishec 

 a collection of papers, once of celebrity, called ' Cato's Letters,' also 

 the ' Independent Whig.' It is said, however, that Gordon, after hit 

 friend's death in 1723, was gained over to the support of Walpole 

 and it is certain that he held the office of commissioner of the wine 

 licences. He died in 1750. There are two collections of his tracts 

 ' A Cordial for Low Spirits,' 3 vols. ; and ' The Pillars of Friestcraf 

 and Orthodoxy shaken,' 2 vols., both posthumous. 



GORDON, REV. WILLIAM, was born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire 

 in 1729. At an early age he became an Independent minister a 

 Ipiwich, and subsequently in London; but he had adopted republican 

 views, and, from personal and political discontent, ho emigrated in 



770 to America; and in 1772 was appointed minister of a church in 

 loxbury, Massachusetts. He attached himself warmly to the revo- 

 utionary cause, and became chaplain to the provincial congress of the 

 colony. After the conclusion of peace he returned to England, where 

 in 1788 he published his ' History of the Rise, Progress, and Establish- 

 ment of the Independence of the United States of America.' It is 

 cast into the form of a correspondence, in letters from America to 

 Europe, and trice vend. The first letter contains a compendium of the 

 listory of the thirteen original States, from their establishment to 

 he beginning of the w*r. The author professes to have applied him- 

 elf from 1776 to the collection of materials ; to have hod access to the 

 tate records ; and to have been favoured by Generals Washington, 

 lates, Greene, and others, with a liberal examination of their public 

 and private papers. It will bo obvious that a history written on the 

 >lau described is not likely to possess much value, except us a collco- 

 ion of contemporaneous evidence. It is written with a strung 

 American bias. The author however did not return to end his days 

 among the people he so much admired. He accepted an invitation to 

 >ecouie minister of a congregation at St. Neots, Huntingdonshire ; but 

 differences of opinion soon sprung up, and he resigned his charge. I ! 

 removed to Ipswich, where he died October 19, 1807 ; his last yean 

 laving been passed in a state of hopeless imbecility. 



* GORGEI, ARTHUR, was born on the 5th of February, 1818, at 

 foporcz, an hereditary possession of bis family, in the county ui 

 n Upper Hungary. He was sent in 1832 to the military school of 

 L'uln, where he remained till 1S37, when his father's influence pro- 

 cured him admission into the royal Hungarian Life-Guards, .-t . 

 at Vienna. In 1842 he was attached to the Hussars of the Palatinate, 

 with the rank of lieutenant. His father died in 1543, and iu IS 15 

 .liirgei quitted the army, and removed to Prague in order to study 

 ;he sciences in the university of that city. He appears to have at- 

 tached himself especially to chemistry, which he studied under Lted- 

 teubach. He had spent the early part of the year 1848 on the estate 

 of a relative in northern Hungary, living a quiet country life, wheu 

 ;he Hungarian Committee of Defence, with Kossuth as its president, 

 in the month of March called for volunteers to defend the country 

 against the armies of the Croatians and Slavonians under their Ban, 

 Jcllachich. Gorgei obeyed the call, and wus immediately invested 

 with the rank of Captain, and attached to the fifth battalion of the 

 Houveds, then in process of formation at Raab. He soon afterwards 

 left this battalion on receiving a commission to purchase muskets and 

 superintend the preparation of other fire-arms, lie was next ordered 

 to assist at Pesth in the formation of a plan for the concentration of 

 the Mobile National Guard from the four circles of Hungary, and 

 was himself appointed to the command of the circle of This-Siu'e-the- 

 Theiss, with the rank of Houved Major. His chief station was at 

 Szoluok, and after collecting about 700 men of the 50UO calculated 

 upon, he was ordered in the mouth of September to occupy the island 

 of Csepel in the Danube below Pesth, in order to oppose auy attempt 

 of Jellachich or his auxiliaries under Roth and Philippovicu to cross 

 the Danube. Before proceeding there he obtained from the Hun- 

 garian prime-minister, Couut Louis Batthyany, a document authorising 

 him to form, wheu requisite, a court-martial to adjudicate upon cases 

 of treason, disobedience, and cowardice, to confirm condemnations to 

 death, and to order their execution. While at Csepel collecting and 

 organising troops, he received, on the 30th of September, information 

 that Counts Eugene and Paul Zichy had been arrested at the outposts 

 on suspicion of treason, and were detained at his head-quarters at 

 Adony. He went there, and conducted the prisoners to the island of 

 Csepel, where he summoned a court-martial, and sat himself as pre- 

 sident Count Eugene Zichy was found guilty of being in communi- 

 cation with Jellachich ; Gorgei passed sentence of death upou him, 

 and the sentence was forthwith carried into execution. Count Paul 

 Zichy, against whom there were no proofs suitable for the proceedings 

 of a court-martial, was transferred to the ordinary courts of law. 



Gorgei was soon afterwards incorporated with his detachment into 

 the corps of Colonel Perczel, who had the command of an expedition 

 sent against General Ruth. The command of the vauguard was 

 assigned to Gorgei, whose strategetic movements caused Roth's corps, 

 on the 7th of October, to lay down their arms, and un the 8th Gorgei 

 was promoted to the rank of HonveJ Colonel. He was next attached 

 to the army of General Moga, commander-in-chief of the Hungarian 

 forces. On the 29th of October they crossed the Fiseua, for tue pur- 

 pose of relieving the city of Vienna, then besieged by the army under 

 Prince Wiudischgratz. A battle was fought near Schwcchat, and the 

 Hungarians were signally defeated, the national guards having ruu 

 away in the utmost confusion. General Mo^a was injured by a fall 

 from his horse, and Kossuth, on the 1st of November, advanced 

 Gorgei to the rank of General, and invested him with the cuiuuiaud- 

 in-chief of the Hungarian armies. In the month of December the 

 Austrian army, under Windischgratz, crossed the frontiers of Hungary, 

 and Gorgei was compelled to abandon Pre.tburg, and retreat from 

 Raab ; he was repulsed at Windschacht, and only saved his army by a 

 retreat over the Sturecz mountain. In February 1849 he was super- 

 seded in the commaud-in-chief by General Dembinski, a Pole, whom 

 the superior Hungarian officers refused to serve under, and, calling a 

 a council, made their determination known. Deiubinski was then 

 superseded by General Vetter, who, having fallen ill, tho command iu 



